


Road Rags

by Go0se



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Adorable Jester Lavorre, Friendship, Gen, Nott The Brave's A+ Self-Esteem, Period Jokes, Trans Woman Jester Lavorree, Underated lore: 'is This species a mammal?', Worldbuilding, talking about periods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-11-23 13:51:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18152681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: No, like, for real: how do you deal with bleeding every few weeks when you're on the road?The women of the Mighty Nein (plus a bird child) talk about handling periods, because Beau is perpetually curious.Later they bother the others about it too, because Jester delights in sowing minor to medium-level discord.





	Road Rags

**Author's Note:**

> The placeholder title for this was "Fantasy Period Management" and that's still about where the fic is at, tone-wise.  
> In any longform non-Our World story, I always have a, 'Okay so how...?' kind of moment. This is my attempt at an answer for CR2. It's also me throwing headcanons at a wall to see if anything sticks and trying to make characterization happen at the same time. \o/  
> Further notes: Molly "Disaster Bisexual" Tealeaf is nonbinary and uses he/him pronouns in this fic; the timeline is somewhere in between Labenda and Hupperdook; and I didn't check the actual D&D rules for any species stats, so please bear with me if someone actually isn't supposed to be a mammal.  
>    
>  **Warnings:** briefly mention/description of using alcohol as a coping mechanism (guess who), canon-typical treatment of the goblin clan Nott was with. Originally wrote this before certain Incidents involving certain characters, but I've edited accordingly.
> 
> Thank you.  
> /

They’d rolled into the town just before dusk. The inn they'd picked was in a nice enough area, and they had enough money now, that the group split rooms: the guys, the ladies, and Mollymauk rooming with the guys.

The floor of the ladies' room was covered with their possessions. The five of them sat amidst it in a loose circle, sorting and taking stock.   
Jester had cast a Light cantrip on her horns, happy to glow and to help them all to see what they were sorting. She'd spent a couple minutes making shadow puppets on the wall behind her to entertain Kiri, then settled down into her own pile.  
“This was a good idea, Nott,” Jester chirped, her tail looping contently behind her. Sitting in between the two inn beds, the tiefling had stuck her arm in the pink haversack up to her shoulder. She pulled out a handful of copper and dropped it, scattering the coins on top of the others by her knee. “I haven’t cleaned this out completely in _forever._ ”  
“A good idea,” Kiri said in Jester’s bubbly tone. She swung her talons back and forth off the side of the bed, one of Jester's lacy slips covering her head like a veil. She clicked her beak cheerfully.

The goblin woman beamed, her mouth full of pocket goat meat she’d found in the bottom of her packsack. “Thanks, Jessie,” Nott said when she'd finished. "It seems like you'd need it the most, anyway."

“Are you finished unpacking already?” Jester asked, a little surprised, stopping her rummaging for a moment.  
Nott nodded. “I organize a lot when we’re on the road." She reached over from the floor and tickled Kiri’s left talon, causing the little kenku to make her happy _‘plrrr’_ noise.  
Jester hummed consideringly and then stuck her entire arm into her haversack again. “That’s a good idea too. I should probably do that more often, huh?” She pulled out a handful of stones she'd had collected because they looked like boobs, giggled, then dumped them by her other knee.

  
Chewing on the last of the meat, Nott looked curiously around at the other women’s possessions. (She _was_ just looking. Nott wouldn't steal from them, no matter how the persistent itch at the back of her head got.) It was interesting, really, how much you could learn from people by seeing what they carried around. Most of the time Nott only cared about people's valuables and how much they paid attention. But this was nice too, seeing her companions' personalities so... tangible like this.  
  
Jester’s pile was by far the largest and most colourful, which fit the cheerful, sweet tiefling. It spread out from her in several concentric circles. Loose coins, hemp rope, sketchbooks, waterskins, paints, a couple knives, her axe, coloured pencils and trashy romance books and vials of several types, all coated with a fine sprinkling of pastry dust. A couple stale donuts as well. And she was _still_ unpacking.

Yasha, on the other hand, was still a bit of a mystery. She had laid out everything she carried within two minutes, with her sword resting on the wall behind her. The Xhorasian woman had a coin purse, cloak, extra underwear, potions, and journal with its flowers pressed carefully between the pages;  her entire life’s belongings was barely enough to fill a bindle. When she’d finished she’d leaned her back against the door, arms casually crossed, watching them all with a peaceful expression that was rare for the warrior. It was... nice, Nott supposed. Yasha could be beautiful when she wasn't towering over you with a giant, deadly sword in her grip.

Their little bird daughter, of course, had wanted to unpack too when she saw everyone else doing it. Kiri had piled up her hooded cloak, her speaking journal they had bought for her, a coupe quills, the furred scarves that Jester had haphazardly covered her with to keep warm when they’d ran into that mid-path market, some more pocket goat meat that Nott had given her a couple days back, and her dagger. It still wasn’t a lot, but it was almost enough for a (very) young adventurer’s starter pack. She’d come a long way from waist-deep in swamp muck with nothing but the tunic on her back.  
A little misty-eyed, Nott quickly coughed to herself like she was choking and wiped at her eyes.

“You alright there? Need a heimlich?” Beau asked from across the small room. She was counting out her coinpurse and marking it down in a small ledger.

“I’m fine,” Nott answered. She scrubbed at her eyes again just to make sure, and then craned her head a little to see Beau’s pile. It was as to-the-point as the monk herself often could be: a dusty pouch of chalk, tape for her knuckles, some jerky, her dark vision goggles, her (currently emptied) coins, waterskin, spare clothes. And something that made Nott blink in confusion.

 

“Hey Beau?”  
“Yeah?” Beau looked up from counting her silvers.  
“What do you have all those loose rags for? They’re too small for bandages.” Nott scratched her nose. “Do you collect them?”  
“Huh? Oh, no, those are for my rag,” Beau said casually.  
“… okay, but what are they for? I know they’re yours, that’s why I asked.” She frowned, her ears dipping. Was Beau fucking with her?  
“No, like. _My_ rag.”  
“I know they’re _yours_ \--”  
  
“She means like her period, Nott,” Jester interjected. She'd looked up from tying a bunch of loose ribbons around her tail and upnodded at Beau. “Right?”  
Beau pointed at Jester. “Yeah, exactly.”  
“You just keep them?” Yasha asked, her grey eyebrows narrowing in confusion. The other three women turned to look at her.  
“Well, yeah, there's no sense in wasting them," Beau said a touch defensively. "Look, I still wash them out good. It’s fine."  
"I guess," Nott allowed, her ears going back to their normal resting height. "That’s kind of a weird thing to call it though. We don't say pissing is 'on the paper' or whatever."  
"You say 'on the pot' for that, though, sometimes," Jester piped up again.  
Beau scowled lightly. “It is not weird, lots of people call it that. On the rag, y’know, since it’s between your legs, it’s like you’re sitting on it? And you'd only do that for one reason."  
“Since it’s between your legs,” Kiri piped up, then switched to Jester’s voice. “Don’t eat humans, okay?”  
Jester's laugh got louder so she turned to look into the haversack, hiding her face with the tuft of her tail.

 

“... maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this in front of her,” Nott said, suddenly feeling bad about involving a child in this. "You know, little pitchers with big ears. And all that."  
Beau shrugged. "Kids'll learn whatever they want."  
Jester reappeared from the bag with a scoff at the same time. “Yeah, it’s fine,” she said, waving her hand airily. Long loops of beads hanging off her fingers glittered in the light. “She already knows most of Tusk Love except for the really dirty bits, anyway. It's not like she doesn't _know_.”  
“She’s going to catch our humour eventually, you know,” Yasha agreed, shifting her shoulders to look at Nott. She had a slight smile. “If she keeps travelling with us for very long.”  
“Going to eventually,” Kiri agreed in Yasha’s soft tone. Then, adding in Fjord’s accent, “Doesn’t matter though.”  
“I guess that’s true,” Nott admitted. "And-- and that's right, Kiri; you don't eat humans. Or anything else that walks on two legs."  
"On two legs," Kiri repeated dutifully.  
"Don't chickens walk on two legs?" Jester wondered out loud.

  
Before that conversation thread could be followed, though, Beau spoke up again. "Hey, Nott, “ she said, pulling the group's focus back over to her. She'd put her silvers back into her moneypurse, looking curious. “Can I ask you something?”  
“... sure?”  
“Do goblins get rags?” She asked, blunt as ever. “In general I mean. Humans do, and I think halflings too actually? But only for the first half of their lives and it's not like, super regular."  
"Right," Nott said without thinking.  
"Elves don't, though, and I guess I've just never heard about goblins? If you don't,” she added, "That'd explain why you didn't recognize what they're for, and all. I wondered why."  
  
“Tieflings do too,” Jester offered when Nott didn't immediately respond. “My mama calls it her sunset tide coming in.” She was trying the beaded necklaces on now, favouring a warm orange one that complimented her blue skin prettily. Another she looped over Kiri’s head like a circlet, to the little kenku's happy clicks.  
“That’s beautiful,” Nott replied to Jester, surprised. "The tide thing, I mean. The necklaces are nice too."  
"Yeah, what she said." Beau turned her curious and piercing eyes to Jester, looking impressed.  
Jester nodded happily. “My mom uses cloths for it-- kinda like yours, Beau. Hers are nice, though, like made of pretty colours and stuff. They're really thick and they have little loops to tie them into her underwear. She had these special sea sponges, too, that she’d put up inside herself whenever there were _really_ rich suitors who could only be there on certain nights, so she could still work without, y’know, bleeding all over them.”  
“Ew,” Beau said under her breath.  
“What’s a sea sponge?” Nott muttered to Yasha, who shrugged.  
“—but I guess there’s people who pay extra for that, too? – Don’t repeat that, Kiri. But anyway, she knows a lot about periods and vaginas and stuff, she told me all about it. She has a little enchanted protection chord that she wears so she doesn't get pregnant, except she didn't wear it when she had me with my dad, because they loved each other _so_ much. Usually it's like an anklet though.” She gestured to her foot. Her stockings were bright yellow that day.  
“That’s very smart of her,” Nott said, as Beau nodded. “Good business practices.”  
“She’s a very smart lady! And very beautiful, and the best lay ever, and the best singer on the entire Coast,” Jester said proudly. “Maybe you all can meet her one day!”  
“Oh, I totally want to meet your mom,” Beau said, with a smile. “Get to know her, if she’d like to.”  
Jester narrowed her eyes slightly like she was trying to figure Beau out.

  
Something occurred to Nott then. “Do you get them with your potions, Jessie?”  
Jester looked back over at her and shook her head. “Nah, they only really work for about seven days at a stretch. That’s why I drink one a week. Other than them being kind of expensive, I mean.” Her expression didn’t change, but her tail loop drooped slightly. "When I was with Mama I didn't have to worry about that, but-- it's an important part of being by yourself on the road, so, it's not so bad going without them sometimes, right?"  
"Hey, no, it's no trouble,” Beau interjected, "We always have enough coin for medicine shit."  
At the same time, Nott promised, "If we ever run out, I'll steal them for you right away, you don't have to worry." The two women looked at each other.  
Yasha nodded, her smooth voice following the other two. "You need them, so we’ll make sure you have them,” she said simply.  
The warmth in Jester's smile came back like the sun breaking clouds, her tail resuming its usual happy curl. (It was now thoroughly beribboned.) "Thanks, you guys. That means a lot."

“With your potions?” Kiri piped up. She was peaking out from under her veil and circlet, blinking attentively at Jester.  
“Oh-- do you want to know what we mean, Kiri?” Jester asked, turning to her.  
“Yes, I am very sweet.”  
“You are,” Jester cooed. She set down her haversack and climbed around her piles and piles of stuff to sit next to Kiri on the bed.  
As she talked, she pulled at the lacy slip and necklace on Kiri's head until she could see properly. “Well, when I was very little, even littler than you, my mama and everyone thought I was a boy. But when I got a bit older I told them that I was happier as a girl instead. So now, every week I take a girl potion that’s kind of like medicine, and it helps me look beautiful.” She fluffed her hair. “Not that I need that much help, you know.” She giggled.  
Kiri digested this for a moment, then nodded. “That’s so wonderful,” she said, mimicking Jester’s voice again.  
Jester beamed.

  
"That is so cute, I might die," Beau said entirely deadpan, but her eyes had gone all soft looking at the two of them.

A moment later, the curiusity was back, and she shifted to look at Nott again. “You kinda avoided my question though, there, Nott."  
“Oh! Ah, right.” Nott scratched at her cheek nervously. “Well, I mean, goblins... bleed normally, like if you stab them, and get with child the same way and everything, so yes. We do. When I was, um, still with my old clan, there wasn’t a special name for it or anything though. We just called them bloody weeks. And. uh, we didn't really do anything about them. Not like you've said. It just kind of happened when it happened. And for me-- sometimes that wasn’t very much, honestly— or maybe I just didn't notice. Everything was _always_ chaotic, often there wasn’t always a lot to eat, especially not for me in particular. And of course there was fighting all the time.”  
“Stress can slow people's bleeding down or even stop it for a bit,” Jester said knowledgeably from the bed. “And so can being real hungry or hurt, or sick, or pregnant; or if you start moving around a whole lot when you didn't for a while.”  
“I know that too,” Nott agreed.  
“So, what, you'd all just bleed into your clothes?” Beau wrinkled her nose.  
Nott grimaced. “Well, yes. Honestly most of the time everyone was covered in—in everything, anyway, it didn't really matter. All the, the mud and the sweat, and soot from the fires, and _mess_ from the meals and all the fighting--  one more thing didn’t make that much of a difference. It. It really was a disgusting place.” As she talked, her ears dipped and pinned back without her even noticing.

The room had fell quiet. Everyone was looking at her with pity now (except Kiri, who just seemed curious and maybe a bit sad). Anxious all of a sudden, Nott pawed for her flask and took a deep swig from it. The burn of the whiskey helped numb the feeling of talking too much, and the prickling paranoia and dirt spreading over her from the memories.  
“I mean, I'm not-- not like that  _anymore,"_ she rambled as she finished a gulp. Not defensively at all and not hiding her face behind her flask. (Holding it close enough that she couldn't see her own reflection clearly.) "I always try to wash right afterwards now. Whenever it finishes. I-- I know that I never smell, or, look _good_ or anything but I do do that, at least. Whenever I can.”  
“We know you do, Nott.” Jester said, gently reassuring. "And I think you're really pretty. I can always give you some bandages from my medicine kit, too, alright, if you wanted to use them? I don’t have any rags, but I could get some if we needed them in the next city or something. It’d have to be easier than washing _everything_ all the time. And even if you don't want to do that, I can create water really easy, so just let me know and I'll make a shower for you, okay?"

"I could lend you some of my clean rags, too," Beau said a moment later, only a bit awkwardly. "Unless we both synch up, but I don’t think that’s as much of a thing between, y’know, different species. It's happened with me before.”  
“… thank you,” Nott said, touched. “Both of you. That might be nice.”  
“Any time,” Jester promised.  
Beau nodded firmly.

  
“What about you, Yasha?” Jester asked their quiet friend as she scratched her own horns, many bracelets jingling.

Everyone turned towards where she was sitting, by the door. Yasha thought a moment, pulling at some loose threads on her jacket. Her reply was mild. “Well, I don’t get them very often, either, growing up. My tribe spent most of our days moving, and fighting, so it wasn't as much of an occurrence. I just use rags too, though. In Xhorhas, we'd wash ours and sometimes stitch little patterns on the sides so we'd know whose was whose. But in the carnival we only packed light, you know, so we’d bury them off the road when we were done with them. We needed to save water for the dunk tank, or washing off greasepaint. Or drinking if we didn’t have any beer. Not really our clothes. I guess I never really got out of the habit after that."  
"That's really cool," Beau said when it was clear Yasha was done. "I should totally embroider mine. I never thought about that."  
"Those do sound really pretty," Jester agreed thoughtfully. "What'd your tribe do all the time that you were moving around so much, huh? Were you nomadic? Ooh, were you farmers?"  
Yasha looked a little uncomfortable. "I--"

“At the carnival,” Kiri echoed, drawing everyone's eyes. She sat up and crossed her little taloned feet, and started whistling something that they had hear along the road. It wasn't quite an actual carnival tune, but it sort of fit; the melody rose and fell like a waltz, sweet and a little offkilter.  
  
When she'd finished, Jester and Nott applauded, and Beau followed them a second later, the previous question forgotten. (Thankfully their stuff all over the wooden floor of the room quieted the sound. Nott had a bit of a headache building up.) Kiri preened and looked proud of herself.  
"You'd fit in pretty well with a music show," Yasha said approvingly.  
"Yes, I am very sweet."

Jester cooed. After a moment she dug her into the haversack again, this time unearthing a bunch of candy. She tossed a few pieces to Kiri, and then to anyone who raised their hands to catch it. “Maybe we’ll take you to one soon, if we see any on the road,” she said as she resumed her rummaging. “Would you like to go to a carnival, Kiri?”

The little bird bounced on the bed. “Like to go! Get into trouble!”

The conversation moved on.

 

*

 

The Nein left the inn early the next morning, piling back into the cart and on their horses. As they continued their way along the road North, Beau slid over to Nott, Kiri, and Caleb where they were sitting against one side.  
Nott was watching Caleb concentrate on the ringed stone they’d found in the swamp; Frumpkin purred in Kiri’s lap as she pet him carefully.  
“I like cats,” Kiri said softly in Caleb’s voice.

Beau reached out to scritch Frumpkin’s orange head, then Kiri's head too, smiling a little goofily. Then she turned and did some stretches, holding her staff across her legs to bend forward.  
Jester was sitting against the other wall of the cart, sketching some of the passing scenery. She knocked her boot lightly against Beau’s.  
Beau knocked her boot back, then nudged Nott. “Hey,” she said, “Guess what.”  
“Hmm?” Nott looked over, her earrings jingling a little. Jester looked up curiously as well.  
“After everybody’s talk last night I found out I, uh, had a guest this morning.”  
Nott blinked, then realized. “Oh you mean like a _guest_ guest, not like, an actual guest.”  
“She’s on her rag now,” Jester supplied brightly. She snickered when Nott sent her a look.  
“Yeah, I got that part. That is kind of funny timing," Nott replied, scratching at her knee. "Uh. Good work?"  
"Thanks, I practice a lot," Beau said, mock-seriously.  
Nott snorted. She was about to turn back to Caleb when her ears twitched upright, and she instead faced to Jester with a grin. "Hey, I was thinking about this yesterday. Bleeding jokes aren't funny. Period."  
She wasn't casting the Hideous Laughter spell, but Beau and Jester both laughed anyway, after they'd finished groaning at the pun. Jester said something quick under her breath; seconds later a burst of applause showered into the air from where she was sitting.  
“Since it’s between your legs,” Kiri chirped happily, scratching Frumpkin’s ears.

  
Beside them, without looking away from his carved runes in the cart floor, Caleb spoke. “I do not mean to be prudish, but could you all please continue this conversation another time? Or at least at the other end of the cart? I am trying to concentrate here.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Caleb,” Nott said immediately, turning towards him. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your casting, is the spell ruined?”  
“Sure, Caleb,” Jester said nearly at the same time. When Nott had gotten to the end of her sentence, she set aside her sketchbook, leaning forwards with her head propped up on her hand, her tail swishing playfully against the rattling cart floor beside her. “I have a question first, though; what do you know about periods?”  
Caleb closed his eyes, put a hand to his head and sighed heavily. “Neine, Nott, it’ll be fine. I can resume it later. I should never had admitted any kind of discomfort, should I’ve.”  
“That’s what gets you,” Molly hollered back over his shoulder, apparently having been listening at least part of the whole time. He turned back and shot them a red-eyed grin.  
“Not helpful, Mister Mollymauk!” Caleb called back, then shook his head. “I don’t see how this is relevant to anything, Jester, but fine. I know that a lot of people have them and how they work. We… did not talk about it much, in my home. It's not really polite conversation.”  
“It’s a good thing we don’t worry about polite conversation,” Jester said, curling a bad Zemnian accent onto the last two words.  
“Apparently not,” Caleb replied dryly, smiling the little crooked smile only Jester seemed to pull out of him.  
“Periods are much less weird than fish people dicks, you know. Or half of the things that are in the romance novels.”  
Caleb conceded the point. “Can I go back to my work?”  
  
But mischief was shining in Jester’s eyes now. She graciously left Caleb alone, instead pulling herself up with the side of the cart and then leaning into the front of it, resting on her elbows. “Hey Fjord," she called cheerfully, raising her voice a bit over the noise of the horses. "What do you know about periods? We’re asking everybody."  
“About—what?” Fjord looked over his shoulder, baffled.  
Jester grinned. “You know, when blood gets squeezed out of people’s vaginas?”  
The half-orc’s handsome features went a slightly deeper shade of green as he winced. “Yes, thank you, Jester, know what they _are_ ,” he replied awkwardly. “I meant, why in the gods’ names are we talkin’ about them _now_?”  
“Just curious!” Jester replied cheerfully, propping up both of her hands under her chin again, tail still flicking happily back and forth.

“The four of us were talking about bleeding yesterday,” Yasha said from her horse beside them, as an explanation to Molly, who was looking over with an increasingly bright grin.  
“Five of us, with Kiri,” Jester corrected.  
“Right, sorry. The bird too.”  
“I see, I do see. Pity I wasn’t invited," Molly replied. "I have some stories I could tell— other people’s, not mine, but still.”  
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Caleb muttered under his breath as he kept tracing around the stone.  
Beau had been watching the back and forth with an amused grin, but now took her chance to get a word in. “I kinda figured you were having your own fun,” she hollered ahead, standing up and keeping her balance easily. “That inn had companions you could hire for the night shift, right?”  
Molly laughed, the jewelry on his horns chiming. “Well thought-out, unpleasant one. To tell you the truth, I did.”  
Delighted, Jester leaned even farther over the front of the cart. "You got _laid_?" She shrieked.  
"Do I look like the kind of person who kisses and tells?" Molly grinned wider. He looked _exactly_ like a person who kissed and told.

Having become the center of a rapid-fire gossip session, Fjord just put his face in his hand.

So much for a quiet journey out.

 

/


End file.
